


The Shallowest Dreams

by Laylah



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Desert, M/M, War, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-13
Updated: 2009-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-02 14:41:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's hardly surprised when the hallucinations start. The desert's probably onto him, probably trying to drive him mad before he learns her secrets. The first time doesn't even strike him as odd: he's out on patrol one brutal afternoon, killing rebels, and he doesn't even notice that he's killed one of them twice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shallowest Dreams

The desert fucking swelters when the sun is up. By mid morning, the horizon disappears into haze, and the shimmer of mirage rises from every solid surface. They lose more troops to heatstroke than to the rebels, some days.

Then the sun goes _down_, and everything goes so crisp and clear and cold that they can see their breath, precious moisture steaming away in little clouds. Mustang says it's because the air is so dry, that more moisture would provide a cushion and make both extremes less so.

Kimberly has a simpler theory. God hates the fucking desert as much as the rest of them do.

It's an easy thing, hating the desert. Easy to claim the desert started it. It's so hostile, so unwilling to provide for human frailty. Kimberly pictures it as a woman, gaunt and skeletal, her hair whipping around her face in a sandstorm and her eyes burning like the midday sun. The Ishvarites' god, merciless and hungry.

He's hardly surprised when the hallucinations start. The desert's probably onto him, probably trying to drive him mad before he learns her secrets. The first time doesn't even strike him as odd: he's out on patrol one brutal afternoon, killing rebels, and he doesn't even notice that he's killed one of them twice. Until it gets up and comes after him a third time, blood and scorch marks still streaking the front of its clothes.

"I need to talk to you," it rasps.

"No, you don't," Kimberly says, and detonates it again. He goes to find the rest of his unit before it can come after him a fourth time. Only crazy people stop to talk to their stress-induced hallucinations.

The second time is on a night-time raid, a precision strike to take down some fortifications in the north of the city. He's almost to his position when Gran falls into step beside him, fast and silent and far more agile than a man his size has any right to be.

"You're doing good work," the colonel says, "but you could be doing so much more. Tonight I want to see what you're really capable of."

"Sure thing," Kimberly says, turning to face Gran, flexing his hands at his sides. He looks up into Ishvar-red eyes and grins nastily. "How does it feel to be a blood traitor?"

Gran starts visibly, and then his face distorts with anger. "You arrogant little --"

"Wrong answer," Kimberly says, still grinning as his hands brush against the hallucination's chest. "The real Colonel Gran thinks it's funny."

The explosion gives away his position and endangers the mission's success. He still manages, but the real Gran yells at him the next day for unnecessary loss of life among their soldiers. Kimberly doesn't tell the colonel that he was hallucinating. He figures it wouldn't go well.

The third time it starts to get weird. He comes back from the showers just past sunset, savoring those few minutes when his skin is still damp, before the desert leaches it away. The barracks are dark -- they've had trouble with suicide bombers lately, crazy bastards sneaking into camp at night to try to kill themselves in occupied buildings. So nobody turns the lights on inside, and there are floodlights around the whole perimeter of camp with extra sentries to watch them. Kimberly makes his way down the darkened hallway mostly by feel, counting doorways until he comes to his own.

For a second he thinks he must have miscounted. But no, he recognizes that scorch mark on the wall from his first heated debate with Mustang. He drops his coat on the floor and crosses the little room. The heavy tread of his boots on the floor disturbs the person sleeping in his bed, who rolls over with a soft, disoriented noise and looks up.

"Mustang?" Kimberly stops, staring down.

Mustang blinks sleepily, his eyes unfocused and dark. "What kept you so late?"

"This is different," Kimberly says, eyebrow raised as Mustang reaches out to him hesitantly. "What happened to, 'Don't touch me, you creepy bastard'?"

"I can't," Mustang whispers, "I can't -- can't take it anymore. How do you stand it?"

"It's easy." Kimberly peels his shirt off over his head, then twitches the sheet back. Mustang is naked. The air smells of warm flesh and alchemy. "It's easy," Kimberly repeats, kneeling at the foot of the bed. "You just have to know what you're doing." Mustang's skin is smooth, sweat-slick, and he trembles as Kimberly's hands press his knees apart. "It's all just chemical reactions, remember? Our enemies have chemical weaknesses. They're flammable. Explosive. You just use it against them." He reaches for the buttons of his fatigues.

Mustang's eyes follow the movement, dark and glittering in the faint reflections of the floodlights outside. "They're _people_, Kimberly."

Kimberly frees his cock from his shorts, stroking himself fully hard. "You'll have to take that one up with Armstrong. I don't give a damn." He leans forward, bracing one hand beside Mustang's shoulder. "Why are you letting me fuck you?"

Mustang stiffens, turns his head to the wall. "I can't -- I..." He shivers as Kimberly leans down to lick the sweat from his collarbone.

"You want somebody else to be the bad guy for a little while," Kimberly says. Mustang closes his eyes.

Kimberly spits in his hand and reaches down. Mustang raises his knees, lips pulling back from clenched teeth, and Kimberly laughs. "You want me to hurt you?" he asks as he readies himself.

Mustang trembles under him. "I don't care."

"Must be the only thing you don't care about," Kimberly says, and pushes. Mustang makes a little keening sound like a dog with one leg blown off, and Kimberly kisses him to stop the noise. He's so tight it almost hurts, and there's a strange, sharp taste in his mouth that reminds Kimberly of alcohol, but isn't.

It only takes a few minutes, quick, hard thrusts and harsh, shallow breaths, and then Kimberly's coming, back arched, teeth gritted against the temptation to moan. Mustang still isn't more than half-hard.

"You want me to...?" Kimberly asks as he pulls out. He reaches down and takes hold of Mustang's cock.

"No," Mustang says, wrapping a hand around his wrist to stop him. "Don't."

Kimberly shrugs. "If you want." He lets go, collapses on the bed, presses back against the wall. It's cool against his skin, and he closes his eyes. Just for a little while.

When he opens them again, the gray light of dawn is filtering in from outside. The sound of the door opening is what woke him and he squints in the dimness.

"Mustang?" Full uniform, that means he must have gone somewhere farther away than the bathroom at the end of the hall. "Where did you go?"

"What?" Mustang hangs his coat on the peg by the door. "I had night patrol. You've known that for days." He starts unbuttoning his shirt, then takes a deep breath and makes a face. "Did you have _sex_ with someone in here?"

Kimberly sits up in his bunk, staring at Mustang in disbelief. He feels sticky, uncomfortable. He realizes he fell asleep with his boots still on. "I think one of us is going crazy."

Mustang gives him an irritated glare. "I can guess which one." He kicks his boots off and climbs up to the top bunk, dropping his fatigues off the side of the bed a minute later. "Don't do that here again, okay? I don't want to have to think about you having sex."

"You're out of your fucking mind," Kimberly says. He buttons his pants, rolls out of bed, and heads out to watch the sun rise from the edge of the base. He'll be damned if the desert's going to make him crack this easily.

Except it seems to be working: he finds himself watching everyone around him, paranoid and hostile, waiting to see what it's going to try next. The regulars avoid him. The other alchemists stop trying to talk to him in the mess. The sun burns his skin and the sand scrubs him raw.

At least the next time it's obvious. He sees movement in a bombed-out, hollow shell of a building and goes after it, leaving his squad behind. They're glad to be rid of him anyway. And it's a little cooler in the dead house, out of the killing sun.

The hallucination looks like his mother.

"I'm proud of you, Zolf," it says, smiling, face lined prematurely from years of working the fields. "You're almost working up to your potential."

Kimberly shakes his head. "I'll still kill you," he says. "Even like that."

"You'll be sorry," says the hallucination. "I'm going to lose my patience eventually."

Kimberly bares his teeth. "I'll take my chances." He lunges, but it's unnaturally fast and strong, springing straight up out of his way and coming down hard on his shoulders. He falls, catching himself on his hands, and as he rolls to the side he feels it launch itself away from him again.

"You're so stubborn," the hallucination complains. "I'm trying to help you."

Kimberly sits up, brushing debris from his palms, wincing at the sting where he's scraped one of them. "_Now_ you sound like my mother."

The thing laughs. "Does that mean you'll listen?"

"Not likely," Kimberly says, unsurprised when that makes it smile. "Be someone else."

"I could make you so much stronger, alchemist," it says. "Strong enough to kill them all." Light sparks along its body like a transmutation, and then it's Mustang, half out of his soot-smudged uniform and licking flushed, swollen lips. "How about this one?" Mustang has never purred at him like that. "You liked this one."

Kimberly swallows, his hands flexing at his sides. To touch that again.... "Had that one already," he makes himself say instead. "What do you look like when you're at home?" He's breaking his own rules, talking to a hallucination like it's real.

It transmutes itself again, becomes lean and androgynous with long black hair and muscular white arms. Its mouth is wide, sensual, cruel.

"_You_ are my delusions of grandeur?" Kimberly asks, picking himself up off the floor with a little smirk. "Somehow, I thought you'd be taller."

The thing smiles. With this face on, the expression isn't pleasant. "You're even more irritating than most of your kind," it says.

Kimberly doesn't even see it move -- just feels the impact as its foot connects with his jaw and sends him sprawling back into the rubble in the corner of the room.

It's on top of him before he can recover, its hand wrapped tight around his wrists and its weight resting on one knee, planted in the center of his chest. Broken stone digs into his back. He's amazed at how solid it feels.

"Play nice with me," the hallucination purrs, leaning down to lick up the blood that trickles from Kimberly's split lip. "I can give you all the power you've ever wanted." Its breath is cool against his cheek. "Or you can keep fighting, that would be fun, too. Because then I would break all your limbs, flay the skin from your hands, and leave you to die under the desert sun."

Kimberly wonders for a second if he's that crazy -- if he really would believe himself that helpless, out here.

The desert is out to get him. He shouldn't risk it.

"Fine," he says, going limp in its grip. "Show me this power."

It slides down his body, still holding on, and grinds against him with another horrible smile. "First, you owe me."

Kimberly laughs. He must really be losing it now. "You want to fuck?" he says, pushing back, unable to help the manic grin spreading across his face. "You'll have to let me up for that."

"Have to?" his delusion says.

Kimberly shrugs, as best he can. "If you want me to cooperate."

"Ah." It lets go, sitting back on its heels, giving him that nasty grin again. "Well, we certainly want your cooperation, alchemist. We want that very much."

"Don't tell me," Kimberly says as he gets to his feet. "God wants me to punish the rebels?" He toes his boots off and reaches for his belt.

The hallucination laughs, a high, splintered sound like the start of a transmutation. "You don't believe in god, Crimson Alchemist." It watches hungrily as he unbuttons his pants. "You're like me. You just believe in killing."

"Close," Kimberly says. He pushes his pants down off his hips. "I believe in nothing."

"Even better." The delusion steps closer, one cool hand on his chest as if to push him down. Kimberly grabs it by the hair and leans down to kiss it, to taste its mouth. It's what he remembers from the other night: sharp as alcohol, but too heady, too thick. But its teeth are sharper now, and it bites his tongue.

"Can you feel it yet?" the thing asks as it wraps a wiry hand around his throat, as he lets it push him down onto the floor.

He's about to ask what it means when he _does_ feel it, just for an instant: power, alchemical energy with no direction or purpose, sets his teeth on edge and raises the hairs on the back of his neck. Distracted, he lets the hallucination spread him out on the floor, its cool fingers pressing his thighs apart.

"What was that?" he asks, watching it hungrily. The sensation jarred his nerves, itched and buzzed and ached, and he thinks he wants it to happen again.

"What is alchemy?" it asks, kneeling between his legs. This close, he can see that its eyes are amethyst ringed with black, and the pupils are slitted.

"Life," Kimberly answers automatically. It's what his teacher always said.

"Close," the hallucination says, and spits in its hand. Kimberly looks down, but he can't see whether its cock is as strange as the rest of it. "Alchemy is the end of life."

The first thrust burns, too much and too fast, not nearly slick enough. But that trapped power brushes his nerves again, jangling and seething under his skin, and his cock twitches anyway. "God," he whispers, "god, oh god." He shivers, gritting his teeth as the thing pushes deeper and the sensations intensify.

"There's no such thing," his delusion breathes, gripping the backs of his thighs and holding his legs spread so it can thrust hard. "There's just us."

Kimberly tosses his head, writhing on the floor, sweat trickling down his sides. The thrumming tension of getting fucked, of being this close to raw power, is too much to bear, making him hiss and snarl, and he reaches down to jerk off in the hope that it will help.

"I knew you were the right one," the hallucination says, kneading his legs with possessive hands. "You're not like the rest of them. You're not afraid of it." Transmutation light washes over its form again, and Kimberly moans helplessly at the rush of heat as its cock changes inside him, and then he's looking up into his own face. "Bringer of death," his doppelganger purrs. "I want to see what you can do."

There's a shout from outside, and then gunfire. Kimberly tries to get up, but the thing holds him down with a hand at his throat, grinning at him with mad yellow eyes. "When the survivor comes through that door, kill him."

"I can't --"

"Yes, you can," his double growls. "You have the power now." It moves his hand from his cock to its chest, pressing his palm flat against its body, eyes glittering with hate and hunger. Its hips haven't stopped rocking, its cock still moving slowly in Kimberly's ass.

And then Kimberly feels the power it promised, a knot of roiling heat in its core, the energy straining toward his hand. His array tingles, and he moans, everything else suddenly meaningless in the face of this brutal excess, pleasure like a transmutation burning through flesh and bone --

And when the soldier comes through the door Kimberly barely registers the uniform, just reaches out with his free hand and opens himself up, lets a red jagged bolt of that power sing through him, and light spills from his open hand as he keens at the pain of feeling so much and he convulses under the monster and comes, oh god, comes, as the soldier is blasted into a brief flash of smoke and flame, into a smear of grease and ash on the wall.

The monster pulls out carelessly, changing again, stealing the face of the dead soldier.

"Wait," Kimberly says, reaching out as it gets to its feet. His hands shake, and he stumbles as he tries to follow it.

"You don't need me anymore," it says. It's still using his voice. "You know how it feels now. You won't need anything more than that."

Kimberly licks his lips. He rests one hand on his own chest, but it's not the same. The power isn't there. "How do I do it again?"

"You'll be given help," says the monster, the hallucination, the angel of death. "Go home to your camp. Find Gran." It laughs, but Kimberly can't figure out why. "You'll know as soon as you see the new toys that they're meant for you, Crimson Alchemist."

It's gone before he can ask it anything more.


End file.
